Lori Gillam isn’t a coal miner – she owns a liquor store in rural Moffat County – but she’s doing her part to help save the Colowyo mine after a federal judge’s ruling in a lawsuit filed by the environmentalist group WildEarth Guardians.

Gillam said Tuesday she has removed beers from a half dozen Colorado breweries at Stockmen’s Liquor because their companies support WildEarth Guardians, whose lawsuit resulted in a May 8 order from a federal judge that threatens to shut down the mine and take 220 jobs with it.

Those labels include New Belgium Brewing, brewed in Fort Collins, as well as Breckenridge, Ska, Avery, Probst and Twisted Pine, she said.

“I have 12 holes on my shelves right now because of them supporting WildEarth Guardians,” Gillam said. “WildEarth Guardians has said they want to ban coal – they want it gone – and we’re a coal-mining town. It’s important for us to support the people who support us and not the people who want to destroy our community.”

Her gesture is part of a regional uprising on behalf of the Colowyo mine, an economic backbone of Colorado’s remote northwest corner, fueled by residents alarmed at the prospect of a mine closure and the resulting hit to the local economy.

About 900 people from Moffat and Rio Blanco counties packed the auditorium at Moffat County High School and spilled into the hallway for a community meeting last Wednesday called by Tri-State Generation and Transmission, the electrical power co-op that owns the mine.

Tri-State CEO Mike McInnes vowed to fight for the mine and urged the community to get involved in opposing the judge’s order, which ruled that the Interior Department’s 2007 permit for a mine expansion failed to give adequate public notice and didn’t take into account the impact on air quality and greenhouse gases.

U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson gave the federal Office of Surface Mining 120 days to bring the permit into compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, a time frame that left company and state officials flabbergasted.

“I believe that public involvement and compliance with NEPA are fundamental to federal agencies like OSM making informed decisions concerning federal resources,” said Colorado Department of Natural Resources director Mike King on Monday in a statement.

“However, the court has provided an unrealistically short timeframe to remedy a complicated NEPA process; threatening a mine shut-down on a federal permitting decision that has been in place for eight years and that Colowyo has been implementing during that time is an unacceptable result,” he said.

King said the state is weighing legal options, including joining a Tri-State appeal of the judge’s order and request for a stay. If granted, a stay would allow the mine to remain open until the appeals process is concluded.

Without that, it’s possible the mine could be forced to close after 120 days, putting at risk the livelihoods of Colowyo’s 220 employees as well as the region’s locally owned businesses supported indirectly by the mine.

As many as a half dozen hearings and meetings on the mine are scheduled for the next month, starting with Wednesday’s public hearing by the OSM at the Moffat County Fairgrounds.

McInnes said a big turnout and active community participation could help sway the judge as he weighs whether to give the federal agency more time to comply with his order.

“In our social studies classes and civics classes, we learned that justice is blind and they sit on the benches and rule for what’s right and wrong. We’re old enough in this room to know that that’s not the case,” McInnes said. “What I’m hopeful for here is that the very reaction that’s been so very tremendous about this issue will have an effect on the judge.”

Frank and Kerry Moe, owners of the Best Western in Craig, said at last week’s public meeting that 60 percent of their business stems from the Colowyo mine.

Like others at the meeting, Kerry Moe said she’s frustrated by the elevated threat to the coal industry from the environmental movement, which has targeted coal-fueled power plants for extinction due in large part to their carbon dioxide emissions.

“Aren’t there more of us than there are of these fringe groups?” asked Kerry Moe during the meeting’s Q&A session. “Can’t we all band together? Can’t all the power plants band together and all the coal miners band together? And once and for all, stop this nonsense and make it go away for good?”

David DeRose, owner of a mechanic shop in Craig, charged that environmentalists “don’t want mankind to walk the face of the Earth.”

Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians in Colorado, said the community should focus its anger not at the environmental movement but at the Interior Department for its inadequate work on the 2007 expansion permit.

“I understand the judge said if the Interior Department didn’t get the job done right, he would have no choice but reverse the decision that they made, which would have the effect of stopping the mining. But that’s the Interior Department’s problem,” said Nichols. “That’s something that they needed to realize is hanging over their heads and taking into account that they need to move as quickly as possible to fix these mistakes.”

Instead of blasting WildEarth Guardians, Nichols said, “I think people in Craig should be marching up to the Interior Department right now and telling them to get the job done right.”

His group said in a statement after the judge’s ruling that the power plant emits “nearly 9 million tons of carbon pollution every year, making it one of the largest single sources of greenhouse gases in Colorado.

“They should take into account the environmental impacts of coal mining and ensure the American public that as they authorize the mining of publicly owned coal, that they’re doing it with their eyes wide open and ensuring that they’re making the best decision,” Nichols said.

The Colowyo mine produces about half the coal used by the Tri-State plant, the rest coming from the nearby Trapper mine, which was also targeted in the WildEarth Guardians lawsuit.

In the case of Trapper, however, “vacatur makes no sense. The federal coal covered by the revision has been mined,” said Jackson in his order.

For her part, Gillam said she plans to meet this week with officials at New Belgium over her decision to pull its products. Brian Simpson, a spokesman for New Belgium, released a statement to the Craig Daily Press saying the company had supported WildEarth Guardians’ past efforts “seeking grant money for restoration projects along the Colorado River.”

“Specific to any work WildEarth Guardians has done regarding the Colowyo and Trapper mines, we were unaware of it at the time and that is outside the scope of our grant allocations,” the New Belgium spokesman said.

Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, and Cory Gardner, a Republican, as well as Republican Rep. Scott Tipton, have urged Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to redo the permit as quickly as possible and consider filing an appeal to keep the mine open.

The Colowyo mine is “a critical component of northwest Colorado’s regional economy and has responsibly operated in the eight years since the mine plan approval was issued by your office,” said Gardner and Tipton in a letter.

Closing the mine would result in an economic hit to the Craig and Meeker communities of more than $200 million, as well as threatening an estimated $12 million in local, state and federal tax revenue, according to Tri-State.

The shutdown possibility has also added to the uncertainty facing northwest Colorado, which is already on high alert in anticipation of a Fish and Wildlife Service ruling on the greater sage-grouse in September, as well as the impact of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently released emissions standards on coal-fired plants.

“It’s interesting how all these federal agencies are having a rather large impact on this area of Colorado,” said Moffat County Commissioner John Kinkaid. “And we’re getting it all at the same time.”

– valrichardson17@gmail.com